Transitioning from posses to access

Transition is on the horizon. It is literally in the cloud!

Soon our music, our books, our entertainment – basically a lot that we use to possess (or aspired to possess) with be accessed for use as and when needed and however much desired.

We will have clouds of information, games, comics and novels, opinions and jazz pieces that we can use. As needed ‘stuff’ can be plucked or accessed. No more cluttered computers, minds and spaces. Next exit is ACCESS.

I grew up in an era where everything was basically done to possess more. The more you have the more convenient your life becomes (not necessarily happy but definitely convenient). The only way to consume was to possess. And with everything that was good or wanted the package it came in grew bigger, as in with a good song you wanted came the six useless tracks you paid for. For that one article you wanted to refer, came a magazine with 60 pages you would never look at. Essentially everything we wanted came in a BoC (Bag of crap) that we paid for.

With clouds, you can hand-pick what you want, how you want and most important how much you want. When done with it, stow it away in the cloud. Awesome…you think, not so fast I say.

There’s a joy in surprise of discovering something you were not looking for. Essentially, we are eliminating a lot of exploration. We don’t know what we don’t know so, looking through stuff has a purpose!

On the other hand, imagine the zen like lifestyle of not having to run after possessions. You need it, you get it and then do away with it. Like a library, the books are there – get it when you want to read it, no need to buy in anticipation of that need to read.

It is not happening tomorrow, but it is happening. The butterfly is emerging. Like everything, it won’t be perfect and like everything it will become the way of life.

Let’s hope that chapters instead of books don’t stifle the art of storytelling. Let’s hope that tracks instead of albums don’t smother creativity. Let’s hope that it is just device agnostic, pay-as-you-go, get-when-you-need thing…basically - no muss-no fuss.

Let’s hope the butterfly is beautiful and the transition worth it.